1884 .] 
AMERICAN GARDEN. 
147 
ORNAMENTAL GOURDS. 
The garden plants most gonoi-iilly grown 
under this name are botanically Oit'cumis or 
CiiourUta, the latter genus comprising tlio 
true Gourds. 
While the foliage of the larger kinds is 
coarse and Squash-like, many of the sinallor 
species are of delicate growth and arc vory 
ornamental. The dowers of all aro yollow 
or white and last in perfection only a few 
hours. All are trailing or climhing annuals 
remarkable for luxuriant and rapid growth, 
and thus aro vory useful for covering trellises 
fences, stumps, or any unsightly object. 
The fruit, the variety 
of which our illustration 
gives a good idea, is of 
many shapes; in some 
species of great size, in 
others very small, in col¬ 
or bright-yellow, green, 
white or variqgated, as 
the case may be, and is 
in all the species very 
freely produced. 
The seeds should bo 
planted where they are 
to grow, after the ground 
has become warm, in rich 
soil, and if a season of 
drought comes during the 
summer they should be 
liberally watered. 
The growth of a Gourd 
is proverbial, and the 
plants will soon cover 
any object near them, 
and by midsummer will 
begin to set fruit. The 
first frost kills the plants, 
but seldom before they 
have ripened an abund¬ 
ance of seed. The fruits 
of most species have a 
very hard shell and may 
be preserved for win¬ 
ter ornaments until they 
grow very dry, when the 
bright colors and mark¬ 
ings fade. 
Of Cucimis some of the 
best are C. flexuosus, the 
Snake Cucumber; C. dip- 
saceus, with teasel-like 
fruit; C. Grossularia, or 
Gooseberry fruited ; C. 
medtdliferus,- with showy 
thorny orange - scarlet 
fruit, and Melochito, 
bright orange. 
The small fruited Cti- 
ourUtce are the egg- 
shaped, Orange, Pear, 
and Lemon; those with 
large fruit are the club, 
sugar-trough, turban, and 
others, but except for . _ 
curiosity those latter are not very desira e. 
An allied genus is the Tricosanthes, w ic 
we also illustrate, which is very ornamen a 
both in flower and fruit. If planted in 
warm situation it will ripen its cmious rm 
out-of-doors, but if one has a spare ra ei m 
the greenhouse it can be most advan a^ 
ously occupied by this plant doling 
summer. , 
The culture is only to plant the see 
train the plant. It will gi'ow thirty ee 
season, every day give an abundance 
tiir ami 
o^lm. fruit which 
IS often throe foot in longth, and which 
cl ang s when r,po to bright orange-scarlet. 
I lie best species is T. col„brina, but T. 
(nuiuina is ornainontal. 
Noarl^y related to the Gourds is the well- 
known Balsam Apple (Momordica), a slender 
climber with delicate foliage. To grow it in 
perfection the seeds should be started in 
pots and the plants turned out, without 
breaking the ball of earth, into the border in 
early .Tune. It should have a sunny exposure 
and rich, moist .soil. Though the foliage is 
ORNAMENTAL GOURDS, 
handsome and the yellow flowers very pretty, 
the fruit is the remarkable part of the plant, 
this when ripe is bright-orange color, and 
splits, turns back like a Tm-k’s Cap Lily, show- 
ii the rich scarlet seeds. The species are 
M. balsamina and charantia, known as e 
Balsam Apple and Pear ivia reference to 
supposed curative properties. Eithei is 
worth growing and is very “ 
trained over trellises or arbors they will soon 
cover them and afford dense shade. 
WET PLANTS DIE IN GARDENS. 
To enumerate and describe all the various 
causes from which plants die would require 
a good-sized book. Those even which are 
ever active in the best managed as well as 
in neglected gardens are not few in number, 
and are pointedly summed up in the following 
by a correspondent of Gardening llluelrated : 
Jleeause most plants in a state of nature 
grow amongst other vegetation, and their 
roots are in a more even temperature and 
more equal state of moisture than they are 
in pots and borders. 
JJecaiise when a plant has finished growing 
in a garden it is gener¬ 
ally cut down before the 
leaves and stems have 
finished their services to 
the plant, which starts 
for its next growth with 
less vigor in consequence. 
Because the natural 
food of plants is the 
rooted jiroduet of de¬ 
caying vegetation — leaf- 
mold, of which plants 
grown in ordinary gar¬ 
den borders receive but 
very scanty supplies. 
Because garden borders 
are kept swept and gar¬ 
nished during winter, and 
the plants consequently 
lose the protection of 
their own dead leaves and 
stems, as well as of other 
dead leaves which the 
wind gathers about their 
crowns. 
Because this tidying 
up of all decayed leaves 
causes all vermin, slugs, 
snails, wood-lice, etc., to 
lay their eggs and con¬ 
gregate about the crowns 
of the plants as the only 
place where they can find 
food and protection, and 
where they devour the 
shoots and buds in win¬ 
ter and spring as fast as 
they appear, and kill the 
plants. 
Because garden borders 
are hoed, dug, forked 
over, and tidied up at all 
seasons, causing a con¬ 
tinual tearing, woimding, 
and desti-uction of the 
growing roots of plants. 
Half the growing energy 
and life of the plants is 
in the tips of the young 
rootlets, and the loss of 
these is like the loss of 
nerve force and blood to 
a human being. 
AQUILEGIA OfflRULEA JAMESII. 
The plant described under this name in 
a former issue had, as we have learned 
since, previously been named Aqiitegia 
cmrulea alba, which name should, therefore, 
have the right of priority; and, although this 
name may sound somewhat inconsistent, it 
is not more so than that of a White ac 
berry,” one being as much a reality as the 
other. 
